Matthew Lamot

You need to understand how this view (I'm not already happy) comes from. For the record, you are already whole, complete, happy. You just don't believe it. If you want to know how this is so, click on the link on my signature. If not then that's fine. Just dont fall for the idea that making effort or having to change brings happiness. Well, you CAN, but ultimately it will lead you right back to where you're at right now

I don't see the problem. You can find out in your own experience what the reality is

Of course you have free will. From the POV of the Jiva this is correct. From the POV of the Self, no, there is not free will. Anybody who doesn't respect these two truths only has half a teaching, therefore an ineffective teaching too

The perception of thought is still ego. Who is watching the perceiver of the thoughts? Mindfulness is a subtle ego. It is true once mindfulness has been achieved, you can netti netti the body of energy that is mindful. Keep going until there is nothing, not even a perceiver.

Enlightened people do not have spiritual practices. Spiritual practice is another vasana.

No shares for me I'm afraid lol. I just know what works, and it's really obvious to me now. We're free to have as many experiences as we want, the thing is to be aware that they will never amount to anything because once you understand the teaching about objects that Vedanta put forward, the a-ha hits you hard like a train because you understand that enlightenment means that you are the essence of ALL experience. Once that hits you after much contemplation and struggle you just throw away any attempts at trying to get an experience, because you now know you would rather be as you are already because that is the end of seeking. Once a person gets that, experiences become silly, and the attachment to them drops away. Suffering is enlightenment IF we're done with seeking. This is not the same as not doing the work. A certain amount of work, netti netti or whatever on the vasanas that keep us bound to seeking is required, so this needs to be explored first. But just meditating for the sake of samadhi is not where it's at. Self - inquiry in the form of either flushing out the I, or resting the I in its source or netti netti on the vasanas needs to be done. Each type of meditation suits a different place on the path. A good teacher should be able to administer the practices for the stage on is at, while at the same time unpacking the teaching properly. Personally memorizing the Vedas or Upanishads are not recommended, because the teaching must be unpacked in a certain order because the next teaching builds on the previous one

You don't need to meditate to have a quiet and peaceful mind. All you need to do is rest your awareness in your awareness itself. This is Ramana Maharishi's method of Self Inquiry. It can be done while you are working, sitting on the train, even sitting at home watching TV. Hell, you could even do it in a busy nightclub, because silence is generated in the mind when the wandering I thought takes it's attention off of objects and is allowed to sink into itself. Nothing externally matters, because the thing that makes your mind busy is not the distractions, but the grabbing hold of the distractions.

A) Stop taking advice from people who have the same problems (and who post about it on here asking for advice and get answers from other people who have the same problems and are just mentally reciting what they heard from those who offered advice but who have not yet dealt with the problem themselves. This is not Alcoholics Anonymous support group) B) Seek the correct information, you can get the right information on how to become yourself without needing to change or take action, because what you dont know and what these online gurus dont know is that the more you think you have to change the further away from being happy you become. And when you have fallen completely into the ditch of unhappiness it is a bitch to climb out of. The secret is happiness is all the motivation you need. Happiness comes first, then that motivates you to act on your happiness to express it. If you want to know how to become happy and are done with bullshit advice about having to change, then click on the link below, because it might be what youre looking for.

Yes. All experiences are ego.

@Sultan Perfect! Another opportunity to show you that once you consult the correct teachings and methods, you can use opportunities like this to progress in enlightenment work. You are strongly influenced by a vasana called "The world is unsafe / there is danger all around me / there is danger in the unknown" Take your pick on which one it is, only you know yourself better than any of us do. Im merely laying out an example. Find out what the vasana is saying, and then analyse your thoughts and behaviours to see what you do to COMPENSATE for this. Once you know what you do to try to get away from this, you can then work on transcending the vasana. Hold BOTH conflicting drives in awareness. Understand that both drives are causing conflict in your consciousness. Watch them and you will suddenly transcend them. This is called netti netti self inquiry. If you want to transcend something, you first have to know what it is. You will always become conscious of a vasana AND its opposite at every stage of the netti netti process.

What actually happened is that you stopped extroverting for a moment, and became peaceful. Your actual true nature is peace and happiness. But because we have hard wired conditioned ignorance which tells us that we are not limitless, unconcerened, timeless, boundless, non-dual awareness, we get caught in this trap called "life" and seeking, chasing objects such as relationships, moeny, recognition, power, attention, love, knowledge, status, and even so-called "higher" states or knowledge like inner peace, enlightenment and all that shit! The fact is, there is no "higher". Higher is just another way the deficient mind clings onto salvation theories like spirituality and enlightenment. The fact is, that reality is non-dual, and if reality is non-dual then every day, mundane, normal experience is reality. So if normal reality is so special, then why do we all feel so bad and start seeking for things in life as soon as were able to think? The reason for this is ignorance. Hard wired, conditioned ignorance (collective) that tells our brains that were not enough, and so we look for things in life in order to ease our dissatisfaction caused by this continual desiring. When we get something, the desire stops, and we feel better. Then the object seems to appear to be the source of our happiness. Do this enough times during life and this idea becomes conditioned. Conditioned ignorance. Meditation wont undo this ignorance unfortunately, because meditation is just another subtle way of seeking, seeking "states" because we still cant shake the belief that we are already whole. The only way to undo this is a practice called Self-Inquiry. And this also involves education on what is going on in the mind. Without that education we get pulled into the illusion of seeking time and time again, and because we dont know what the fuck is going on we keep seeking, seeking states, seeking experiences, seeking no-mind, seeking fucking enlightenment. Check out the non-dual teachings of Vedanta, and get into Self Inquiry as this is the only way to see through the bullshit of illusion and end seeking for ever.

It's ok. If you still want Enlightenment then it does not matter what you did to your brain. Your "brain" is a thought, an interpretation You, your brain, your thoughts, your life, your friends, your spliffs are all thoughts inside your "big brain" called consciousness.

Thanks. In this state, can you "see" thinking? As if you were at the end of a corridor and you are looking down the corridor and some way down it is "thinking"?

Emptiness is a Buddhist state experience. It is meant to describe a part of a process of stages of meditation absorption. It has nothing to do with the nature of life, or reality, and the lay person who is not interested in enlightenment or interested in fitting this description into its proper context need not bother thinking about such things. FWIW, there are stages beyond emptiness. Even in the Buddhist tradition. Nothingness is the Absolute "state" and is where "God" resides. But God is not just nothingness. If you had exposure to the correct information you would know that God also manifests. God manifests a vibration that projects itself outward in the form of archtypes known as the collective unconscious. You are free to live in the collective unconscious, and all that experience has to offer you. It is not "empty" it can be enjoyable. Its highest condition is "Self-Actualization" and an ok life can be made there. Further to that is Self Realization, a condition where one is free from the collective archtypes and where one is living their true nature. This is not for everyone, and not everyone will get there either. But either way, none of this manifest life is "empty". You just have a misguided perspective.

@Names are labels You had an experience called manolaya, which is a temporary cessation of thought. It's when the I thought stops seeking objects for a moment and rests in itself. This is not enlightenment, because enlightenment is a permanent condition when the Self shakes off the conditioned hard wiring that kept it seeking for fulfilment outside itself. Enlightenment only happens once if it ever happens at all. You had a taster, but no amount of tasters will help you become enlightened unless you know, understand and absorb the correct teachings that will enable you to contemplate on your ignorance rather than keep extroverting and looking for answers, definitions, state experiences and the ultimate object "enlightenment". The reason you may get divergent answers about this, is percisesly because of this lack of authentic teaching, and the seeker is left second guessing the path where they could have consulted a qualified tradition and teacher and just be now getting on with the inquiry.

And whats that got to do with liberation?

What do you get from letting go of all knowing? If I may ask?

Or maybe you overestimate Shinzen Young? Happiness is what enlightenment is about. Awareness, consciousness, nothingness and all that bullshit are just technical jargon for the dry theory side of it. Enlightenment is about realizing that you don't want to escape this life anymore. It's an understanding of who you are and that the world is dependent on you, not the other way around. Dependency is for those that don't understand themselves and still believe that there is something worth chasing in life in order to complete ones self. It's all about the end of the search.

And by the way, I've been there hundreds of times. Now every day I go there. The deep bliss of nothingness, ignoring all objects of mind, netti netti of the knower itself, and that knower, deeper and deeper experiences of nothing. There is another stage beyond what you describe, where it is the extinction of even awareness. This is called the Absolute. I'm sure I have been there, I know I am. But each time I come out of it, the ignorance is still there, and the suffering. So I know experiences dont mean anything, because the one "experiencing" is still some form of subtle ego, still some form of subtle duality. Because the experiencer has no way of recording the extinction of nirvana. We can never "experience" the Self.

You didnt read the article. That's ok. You know best

And I know you mean well, and I appreciate it.

This indicates how much you don't know about enlightenment. There is no need to change the person into something other than he is via an emotional maturation process. Enlightenment is all that is needed, real enlightenment as understanding, and not the enlightenment you are coaching people on as state experiences or realizations of the Absolute. Like I said, once you yourself understand what enlightenment really is, and that there is no need to change the Jiva into a modified Jiva, you will see the absurdity of Self-Actualization. Find out for yourself. Click on the link in my signature.

It does not matter how many experiences of no self you have. They have nothing to do with enlightenment. Enlightenment is the hard and fast knowledge that you are already the Self. But the reason you don't know it is because ignorance is hard wired. Most of what we know in the west is corrupt knowledge about enlightenment. A bastardized corrupt version of enlightenment is some mystical experience that is different from ordinary everyday mundane experience. No amount of samadhi "experiences" will change thought patterns of duality. James Swartz personally knew a guy who was in samadhi state for 4 years, and came out of it and was back to square one. If you want to understand what enlightenment really is beyond what you currently understand it to be, read the link posted on my signature at the bottom of my posts. Enlightenment is really about education rather than the egos experiences.

LOL why did you edit it? it was funnier that you said yes with such earth shattering conviction and then leo rocks up and says no

Yeah, and I think if he was actually Self realized he would have seen the absurdity of the self actualization model he brought to the world - fucking childs play !